William Sturgis Bigelow

William Sturgis Bigelow (1850–1926) was an American physician and collector of Japanese art. He was one of the first Americans to live in Japan, and to introduce the American public to Japanese art and culture. He was also among those who adhered to the philosophy of the "White man's burden", and worked to establish protections for Japanese art during a time when some Japanese were willing to sell or destroy elements of their own traditional culture in a fervor of Westernization and modernization.